It's Official--I'm a lady!

This last weekend Brett's parents and youngest brother were in town. Brett's dad had a conference in Phoenix at the Arizona Biltmore hotel, and he brought along Linda and Ryan so they could spend some time with me and Brett. I did a lot of "firsts" while they were here. I drove through a neighborhood of multi-million dollar houses in Arizona for the first time. And coveted. I played lawn chess, which was great fun. The best was when some woman came over and moved one of the pieces because she couldn't tell we were playing a game. "It just looked like a big mess." Yeah, a big mess that was two turns away from check mate!

While lawn chess was rather high class for me, the best was yet to come. Saturday afternoon we were all walking through the hotel when we walked past a sunroom full of older ladies all dressed up having a tea party. Linda and I looked at each other and exclaimed, "Tea Party!" It looked like so much fun and not being ones to pass on a possibly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, we decided to have afternoon tea. I'm sure you are all probably wondering why I was so excited about drinking some tea; you weren't there. Not only was there a selection of herbal teas served in beautiful real china, there was also three courses of tea snacks. Also, I learned as a young teen that I loved reading literature based in early 1800 England. I've thought that I was born at the wrong time and how I was meant to be a rich Lord's daughter. So afternoon tea was me living that dream for a few short hours.

The three courses lead to several other firsts for me. I ate caviar and enjoyed it. I fell in love with lemon curd on blueberry muffins, and I ate a piece of chocolate in the shape of a swan. By the end we both thought afternoon tea should make a come back. We also decided that I should start a Finer Things club at work. Sadly the idea of having afternoon tea got me several blank stares at work on Monday...unrefined men!

After my experiences over the weekend I decided I was officially a lady. Then I went to work on Monday and someone casually asked what I had done that weekend and then answered the question for me by saying, "Oh, you were probably watching a lot of football." I quickly put him in his place, but felt less like a sophisticated lady when I realized that any other weekend that probably would have been true.